#femininty

[blair-kamo]

[man2maiden]

Emily Marilyn - Feminine Inspiration

[theblackfemininesociety]

🏷️ theleahalexander

[pinkstampsonloveletters]

[mina-posts-nonsense]

on mikasa’s gender expression and the theme of duality

tldr: mikasa being both a highly skilled, powerful and efficient solider is contrasted to her domestic wishes of simply being with her loved ones: much like her philosophy of the world being cruel and beautiful, she embodies that duality because she is traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine in her appearance and trait wise. however, the main issue is that the world doesn’t allow her to present feminine (i.e. long hair & being “soft”) she must take arms (act “masculine” via short hair and violence) to protect her loved ones and this is at the “cost” of her femininity. for other characters like hange, freckles ymir and yelena they like presenting masc even without “practical” reason for it- but in mikasa’s case, conflict robbed her of her choice of gender expression, personality and family.

disclaimer: i want to begin by saying that i love masc / gnc takes on mikasa but this is just my take on how isayama presents her throughout the story and why that might be. and i’ll be discussing very stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, i.e., skirts / long hair / pink = feminine. but it’s my personal option that characterising traits or expression into masculine or feminine is simply fucking stupid. for example men in my culture wear lungis, when my english friend came over she made fun of my dad for wearing a “long skirt”- different cultures will have different standards for masculine and feminine presentation, so im just gonna try and go by snk’s standards for genders.

let’s look at mikasa’s hair throughout the series first.

throughout her childhood, mikasa keeps her hair long, both in her original household and the jaegers:

she keeps it long even in her cadet days, until eren tells her to cut it then she asks him to tell her the length too:

the reason i point this out is to show that mikasa’s short hair is done out of practicality NOT out of a desire to have short hair. it isn’t her desired length, it is eren’s (the one who led her into battle in the first place.)

post s3, she then tries growing it out, but an accident makes her cut it again leading to the s4 hair cut:

Q: Why did Mikasa cut her hair short?

A: She used to keep it long and make a ponytail. Due to some unexpected accident, the knot part was chopped off.

again, this is an example of her wanting long hair, yet circumstances lead her to having short hair- it isn’t her choice.

in their eremika’s paths timeline, we see mikasa grow her hair out:

once the whole war situation is over, she again chooses to grow out her hair, she kept it long for the rest of her life:

so yes, mikasa did have short / “masculine” hair for most of the series, but the most important bit for me is her feelings on the matter the way and her (limited) choice of gender presentation. it is made obvious that she wants to have long hair, yet she is forced to keep it short, being a solider gets in the way of her wishes, much like how she’d prefer not to do battle yet she needs to. the fact that eren, again the person leading her into battle, decides the shortness of her hair is significant.

lets move onto her outfits:

mikasa has anime character disease so her non-solider outfit is the same as her childhood clothing, a long skirt, eren’s scarf and cardigan. she usually wears pink, either in the skirt or cardigan.

in the snk universe, this is standard clothes for women as you see other feminine characters like historia and sasha wearing the same combo:

by contrast, here’s freckles ymir’s non solider outfit:

mikasa does wear a lovely new outfit during the marely expedition:

by contrast again, here’s hansi:

you can clearly see that they wear a much more masculine clothing, hansi (like freckles ymir & yelana) exclusively presents masc (isayama even told translators to use gender neutral or at least equal parts masculine and feminine pronouns for hansi!!!) whereas mikasa chooses to present feminine where she can.

(there’s also (idk if this counts) a blue dress thing (?) mid timeskip too:

idk it might be odm uniform ???)

moving on, she again wears pink + her long skirt + long hair in the cabin timeline & after the war is over:

whilst majority of her screen time is her wearing the scout’s uniform, when mikasa feels safe, when she is able to, she chooses to dress feminine.

so her masculinity defined by her short hair and battle prowess is much liked her solider uniform -> she wears it when it is necessary, not out of desire though. it is the world that mikasa is in that makes “masculinity” in the form of gender expression (short hair, trousers) necessary.

[sleepyssienna]

You daily dose of tips

[honeytonedhottie]

what are the things you do to keep u more in touch with ur femininity? I wanna be a girly girl sooo bad and some advice would be nice 🥹

taking impeccable care of myself - beauty routines and rituals that require effort bcuz im #worth it

listening to pretty music (any music that makes you feel girly and feminine and confident)

surrounding myself with beautiful whimsical things

adding more whimsy in mundane things (cute pink skincare headband when washing face, or cute pink keychain on makeup bag)

[cocoacherub]

Lil chud with my melody..